Phnom Penh

Saigon

So our last stop in narm was ho ci minh city aka saigon the big one. Busiest place, streets packed with people and food and 30p beer. We were proper tourists and went to the old presidents palace and the war remnants museum. It was heartbreaking the photos were so graphic and the stories were just so sad. It was really interesting though and we learnt a lot. Cheered ourselves up a bit with a few drinks at cheeky monkey watching their really good cover band and judging the old white men with suspiciously young girls. Next day did a trip to cu chi tunnels which the vietcong used to hide in. We got to crawl through them they were so tiny I wimped out half way but dale powered through till the end. More 30p beer at the street bars with dales new japanese friends. They were won over by his opening line 'I know karate'. Next day made the bus, bike, boat, treck to cat tien national park where we stayed at crocodile lake which was beautiful. Had a little treck through the jungle with the best most smiley guide duc. We saw monkeys and lizards and crocs. Things turned bad for duc though. He went fishing on croc lake but a bloody thunderstorm started so he had to hide in the forest in his pants till it stopped about 3 hours later. Poor duc. Made the journey back to saigon for one more night before leaving for cambodia.

Dalat

Dalat is known as the Paris of voetnam and honeymooners flock there. Built nearly 2km up in the mountains it was a perfect place to escape the heat of the beach. we got there in the afternoon and had a little explore up and down the towns hilly roads that make it feel like somewhere in the Alps.  In the morning we got our motorbike and set off a long motorbike ride to elephant falls, which was long. There were a few falls amd we chose the least touristy one but it was worth it. After the usual doubts whether we were going the right way and a few just about helpful encounters with the locals we found it. There was nobody there at all so we parked our bikes and climbed down the rocky trail. The waterfall was massive but the best bit was that uou coild get behind it, which was so loud and we got soaked, and get to the bottom where we saw more dragonflys than you can imagine.  After an awesome ride winding back up the mountain we went to see 'the crazy house'.

 Which is literally a crazy hotel place thats still being made with stairs over the roofs, caves in hallways a giraffe you can climb in and themed rooms.

Nha Trang

After a nights bus that was miles better than our last we arrived early morning in nha trang, sorted ouraelves a room and headed straight for some breakfast before the beach. We've heard alot of people mentioning how some towns are full of certain nationalities and it looks like we found a boiling hot moscow. The first clue was that the menus first language was Russian! We're in Vietnam why isn't it english? Bloody inconvinoent. Then hundreds of russians and the russian music really gave it away. Anyway we couldn't drag ourselves away from the beach, bear and coconut water so spent the day burning on the beach. No matter how much suncream we put on we still came back like a couple of prawns and I was finding dead skin on my head a couple of days later. After the beach we got a taxi to some ruins and walked a long bloody way to a mahoooosive buddha with a shrine to a bunch of monks and nuns who burned themselves to death to piss off the south vietnamese, or for reasons a bit deeper than that. We spent our evening muching on a couple of kebabs before  heading off the next day.